The Diachrony of Infinitival Patterns
- According to Haider (2010), we have to distinguish three types of infinitival complements in Present-Day German: (i) CP complements, (ii) VP complements and (iii) verbal clusters. While CP complements give rise to biclausal structures, VP complements and verbal clusters indicate a monoclausal structure. Non-finite verbs in verbal clusters build a syntactic unit with the governing verb. It is only the last infinitival pattern that we address as a so-called coherent infinitival pattern, a notion introduced in the influential work of Bech (1955/57). Verbal clusters are bound to languages with an OV grammar, hence the well-known differences regarding infinitival syntax in German and English (Haider 2003, Bobaljik 2004). On the widespread assumption that German has been an OV language throughout its history (Axel 2007), we expect all three types of infinitival complements to be present from the earliest attestions of German.
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.5.1 |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2210-2116 print |
| ISSN: | 2210-2124 online |
| Title of parent work (English): | Journal of Historical Linguistics |
| Publisher: | Benjamins |
| Place of publishing: | Amsterdam |
| Editor(s): | Ulrike Demske, Łukasz Jędrzejowski |
| Publication type: | Part of Periodical |
| Language: | English |
| Publication year: | 2015 |
| Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
| Release date: | 2020/02/04 |
| Tag: | history of German; infinitival patterns |
| Volume: | 2015 |
| Issue: | 5.1 |
| Number of pages: | 174 |
| Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Germanistik |
| DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 41 Linguistik / 415 Grammatik |
